BMW and HERE unveil the future of driving at CES

This week, HERE takes the wraps off of a year-long collaboration with BMW and is demoing how we’re rapidly advancing in-car systems to keep pace with the consumer electronics industry. At the Consumer Electronics Shows (CES) in Las Vegas, you can experience BMW’s new “Intelligent Drive”, with location capabilities from HERE.

Over the last 12 months, experts at BMW and HERE have worked together to deliver advanced features for connected cars that you can enjoy from the comfort of the driver’s seat without fumbling around with cables, GPS units or smartphones.

Efficient, safer and smart

Ever run out of gas when you’re on the road? Most of us will grab our smartphone; look for ‘gas station’; filter irrelevant search results that aren’t on the way; and finally insert a new destination in a navigation system or smartphone app. Pretty clumsy, isn’t it? And dangerous, too, if you do all this while driving. More recent systems such as Android Auto and Apple CarPlay make the process a bit easier, but it’s still a far from ideal way to fill up.

What we’re developing together with BMW will allow your car to learn the tank level at which you usually refill and automatically search for gas stations when you get to that point.

All the results will be relevant because they’re on your way, and prioritize your preferred gas station chain, so you don’t have to drive back or go too far off-route. You’ll even be able to see the prices at different stations in advance.

You’ll be able to get smart parking recommendations, share your destination and ETA and get safety alerts for hazards, speed restrictions and traffic.

This kind of experience is only possible with the accurate and reliable maps and location cloud services HERE is able to provide.

Always connected to your car

We all know that a journey doesn’t start or end in the car. Especially In cities, we often use a car alongside other types of transport, such as trains, and we often have to park at least a few blocks from our final destination. With the BMW-specific app we’ve created for iOS and Android, you can plan your route before entering the car. You can also get pedestrian navigation from where you park to your real destination. And when you’re ready to get back in your BMW, you can use augmented reality to find it again.

And it’s not just about smartphones, either. Integrating BMWs into modern city infrastructure requires a location cloud that connects all of your devices, wherever you are. That’s why we’re also developing applications for BMW on TV, smartwatches and other mobile devices, which visitors can check out at BMW’s own booth at CES in the South Plaza.

A history of great collaboration

This isn’t the first time that HERE and BMW have worked together to change the lives of millions of drivers around the world, as you can see in this infographic.

Click for full-sized image

As far back as 1994, we developed the first automotive-grade map – a map so accurate and reliable that car manufacturers wanted to include it in their vehicles. BMW chose our map of Germany for their model BMW E38.

Two years later, our automotive-grade map enabled BMW to launch the first in-car navigation system in the US.

In 2006, BMW debuted Adaptive Cruise Control using our map data, which includes information that make cars able to anticipate the speed, curvature, slope and banking of the road ahead.

Today, with a HERE-powered BMW, you get more than just a vehicle, but a full set of mobility applications that work on a global scale. If you want to see this future in action, just visit us at CES in Las Vegas until January 9 at booth CP2 in Central Plaza or BMW in South Plaza.